Damba, who had been put in charge of the slaves’ compound, was at the entrance to meet the Na and his party. He had made an attempt to smarten up his prisoners. They had had their first proper bath since their arrival. Discarded old clothes had been found for the man who had arrived dressed only in withered leaves. Damba had persuaded his mother to let him have an old cloth for Nandzi.
The Na and Koranten Péte walked slowly down the line, stopping to inspect and discuss each slave. Speaking his own language, the Na asked a slave his name. When he received only a blank, uncomprehending look in reply, he tried again in Hausa; then Nana Péte tried Asante.
“Bush people,” said the Consul to the King. “It seems that they do not hear any civilised language.”
“If you please, sir,” said Damba, stepping forward nervously, “this boy, he is called Suba, hears our tongue.”
“Suba, is that your name?” the Na asked.
Suba was lost in embarrassment. He had become proud of his developing skills as an interpreter and was pleased at the way that Damba depended upon him, but he was just a humble village lad and quite unversed in the customs of a royal court. He was overwhelmed by the rich clothes and arrogant bearing of these nobles. Fortunately for him, he did not have to reply. Nandzi, standing next to Suba at the end of the line, had caught the royal eye.
“What's this?” he said, examining her frankly.
Nandzi dropped her eyes and looked at her bare feet. This was not the first time she had seen that look in a man's eyes. But this gorgeously robed man was a king. What could he want with her? How should she react? Was this a threat or, might she hope, an opportunity? She concentrated her mind and tried to summon up a vision of Itsho.
The King put his hand under her chin and lifted her head, giving her no chance but to return his gaze.
The Asante Consul put his arm around the King's shoulder.
“No, no, your majesty,” he said firmly, “You have not forgotten our treaty, have you?
“Not just this one?” the King appealed, distracted from his projected dalliance.
“I fear not,” said the Consul. “You have brought in only twenty so far. Your target this season is three hundred. You have a long way to go yet. I regret that I cannot permit any, if you will forgive me, any diminution of my master's stock. Anything in excess of three hundred, of course, is yours to dispose of as you wish, but the first three hundred: those are ours.”
* * *
Damba persuaded the Na and the Consul to permit him to appropriate Suba as his personal slave.
“It is because I hear their language,” Suba said proudly. “Now I am going to start learning Hausa too. And when I master that, I shall learn Asante. Then I shall know all the languages in the world.”
Nandzi laughed. “That is wonderful news, Suba. Now you will not be sent to Kumase. Just think, if Damba were to take you with him on one of his expeditions, you might have a chance to escape and return to your home and family.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” replied the boy.
Damba was treating him kindly and his memories of home were beginning to recede: he saw a career as a court interpreter opening before him.
“But I will be sad if they take you to Kumase and leave me behind,” he said.
In attendance on Damba, Suba now learned all the latest news. The Council of Eunuchs had completed its examination of Abdulai and other witnesses. Abdulai had been fined twenty cows and fifty goats, which would leave him impoverished. He had been demoted and his white horse and brass accoutrements had been confiscated. The two guards who had fallen asleep on duty had been sentenced to death.
“Damba says it is a warning to the other warriors to do their work well and not be cowards,” explained Suba.
The following day Nandzi was at the head of a procession of slaves, each bearing a load of firewood for the shea-butter factory. As they entered the market square there was a commotion at the far end. Their mounted warder, eager to witness what was to come, ordered them to halt.
The Na and his court were seated in the shade of a tree. Beside the Na, on a stool, sat the Asante Consul. The two condemned men, their hands tightly bound behind their backs, were led into the square. The State Executioner, his heavily muscled body bare from the waist up, called a halt. An assistant tied the prisoners' ankles and forced them to their knees before the Na. The Chief of the Eunuchs proclaimed the charge, the verdict and the sentence in his high-pitched voice. There was a great roll of drums as the Executioner raised a heavy wooden club on high and brought it crashing down on the first man's skull, felling him with a single blow. The crowd gasped. Then it was the turn of the second victim.
The warder had seen enough. He cracked his whip at his charges and they moved off again. Nandzi turned her head as they left the market square. The corpses had been laid face down upon the ground. The Executioner raised his axe on high. As she watched, he brought it down and, with a single mighty blow, severed the head from the corpse. A great cheer went up from the watching crowd, but when it died down, Nandzi heard women wailing. She felt faint and wanted to vomit. The warder cracked his whip and she pulled herself together and walked on.
“They cut the stomachs open and took out the livers to make medicine for the Na,” Suba told Nandzi later. “Then they dragged the bodies into the bush and left them there for the vultures to eat. They have stuck the heads on poles in the market place.”
“Suba, I don't want to know about that.”
Nandzi had other matters on her mind.
“Suba can you keep a secret?” she asked.
He was the only one she could talk to.
The boy nodded energetically.
“I am going to escape,” she said.
His eyes opened wide.
“I didn't want to go without saying goodbye to you. You are my brother now and I will never forget you and what you did for me.”
* * *
Nandzi lay on her back and stared into the darkness.
Her arms and legs ached from her long day's work in the shea-butter factory and yet she could not sleep. The small round room was packed with women. At the perimeter they lay shoulder to shoulder, but near the centre of the room there was not enough space for all their feet. When Nandzi lay down early enough to stretch out her legs on the floor, they were soon buried beneath those of her neighbours. Tonight her feet had lain uncomfortably on top of a jumble of others until she had drawn them back beneath her knees. When the next consignment of women arrives, she thought, they will have to sleep outside in the courtyard.
The room had no windows and the single door opening provided little ventilation. Their water ration was barely enough for drinking, let alone bathing. They were all filthy. There was a pervasive smell of stale sweat and shea-butter, menstrual blood, urine and farting in the room.
Nandzi was hungry. She ran her hands over her body.
I am wasting away, she thought.
She raised herself to a sitting position and leaned back against the plastered mud wall. Immediately, it seemed, adjacent bodies filled the narrow space her legs had vacated.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Itsho, she breathed, Itsho, help me. Itsho's features filled her mind. Speak to me, she whispered. Itsho, tell me what to do. He smiled and his lips moved but she heard nothing. A woman snored. Then the vision was gone. She shook her head vigorously from side to side. Itsho is no longer in this world, she told herself. I am all alone; I have no one to depend on but myself.
Not for the first time, she considered her options. There were only two: and of those acceptance was out of the question. Her present condition was intolerable and the prospect of the future seemed worse.
Yet every escape plan she considered was fraught with difficulty and danger.
Exhausted, she fell asleep and dreamed. She was alone. A row of enormous earthenware cauldrons stretched as far as she could see. Each was supported over a blazing fire. She had to keep the cauldrons on the boil. She collected firewood
from a pile and ran from one fire to the next, stoking. The smoke filled her eyes but she could not pause. The boiling must not stop. She stood on tiptoe to peer into a cauldron. There should have been shea-nut kernels bouncing up and down in the bubbling, boiling water. Instead there were men's heads. Somewhere in the distance stood Itsho, naked, his body smeared with shea-butter, watching. Two men approached, arm in arm. One was the King, the other Abdulai. “Yes, that is the one,” said the King, pointing at her. Abdulai grabbed her suddenly from behind, one arm round her waist, the other hand in her crotch, and propelled her up into the air, in a great, arcing slow-motion trajectory. She felt she was gliding like a bird. Then she was diving head first into the seething cauldron.
“What is it, sister?” mumbled her neighbour, woken by Nandzi's scream.
* * *
Nandzi awoke with a start.
She had taken a place near the door so as not to run the risk of disturbing the other women. She looked out and saw the crescent moon.
Cautiously she rose and stepped through the doorway into the empty courtyard. Far away a dog barked. It was bitterly cold. She rubbed her arms in turn and wrapped herself tightly in her own old cloth and the one that Damba had given her for the Na's inspection. Then she made her way silently towards the entrance hall. The brass bells which hung around the necks of the tethered horses made a tinkling sound at every slight movement. A guard lay stretched across the outer doorway, asleep. Slowly, step by step, she picked a way across the room. A horse whinnied and she froze, her heart pumping. The guard turned over in his sleep. She took a careful step. Her bare foot landed on a pile of fresh horse shit. She cursed. Another step. She heard snoring: there was at least one more guard lying hidden in the dark recesses of the room. She wondered whether these sleeping guards would also have their heads chopped off when her escape was discovered. Then, at last, she had stepped over the form at the door and was free of the prison compound.
Only the drone of the cicadas and the horses’ bells disturbed the silence of the sleeping town. Like a wraith she moved through the shadows. As she reached the last compound, a dog rushed out at her, snarling. She took to her heels and ran. Reaching the limits of its territory, the beast stopped and stood in the pale moonlight, barking after her. She ran without stopping until she reached the dawa-dawa tree at the edge of the thicket where they went to cut firewood. There she collapsed on the ground, her chest heaving and wet with sweat in spite of the night chill.
When she had recovered her breath, she sat up and listened. An owl hooted nearby. An ill omen, she thought. The bird sat on a high branch, staring down at her.
“Whoo, whoo,” she whispered.
She collected her hidden treasures: an iron cutlass, presumed lost by a firewood party; and an empty drinking gourd. There was no time to lose. She looked back at the sleeping town, taking her bearings. At the well she stopped to drink and fill her gourd. Keep the town at your back and the moon on your right, she told herself. Keep going straight and in three or four days' time you will walk into your father's compound.
* * *
She had not come far, yet she was already exhausted.
She could find no tracks in this bush, not in the dim light. She had started to hack a way through with her cutlass, but that was hopelessly slow. They would laugh at her, think she was mad, if they captured her, cutting traces through the scrub from nowhere to nowhere. “Where did you think you were going?” they would ask her.
But they must not capture her. They would surely kill her if they did.
The gourd was barely half full: much of the water had spilled. She stopped to take her first sip. Then she set off again, using her slight body as a ram to force a way through the long dry grass, changing course, even sometimes retracing her steps, when she met an obstacle. The brittle reeds tore at her cloth and scratched her skin. If I step on a snake, she thought, that will be the end of me. She struggled on. It was hopeless, she knew it was hopeless. She had no idea where she was or in what direction she was going. She came to a small clearing and lay down on her back to rest. The sky was dark. There were no stars. Only the pale moon had the strength to penetrate the dust of the harmattan. The cold night chilled her through and through. I must decide what to do, she thought.
The rasping cough of a leopard came floating through the night air. She sat up in alarm. There it was again. Fortunately, she judged, the beast was off her track and up wind and would not have picked up her scent. But if she continued to force her way through the bush, it might well hear her. Leopards have extraordinarily acute hearing, Itsho had once told her.
Then a thought occurred to her. It was the leopard, so Tabitsha had taught her, which in ancient times had brushed the path of the fleeing Bekpokpam with its tail, hiding their tracks from their Bedagbam pursuers. Perhaps Itsho had sent this leopard to protect her in the same way? Perhaps; perhaps not. It would be better not to count on it.
She forced herself to concentrate. The moon would soon set and then it would be completely dark until dawn. She had worked a full day pounding shea-nuts and had had only a short sleep before stealing out of the prison and the town. Now there was a very real danger that she might be torn to pieces by a wild beast. There was that sawing cough again. She shivered. A fire might keep the leopard at bay but she had no means of making a fire. She stood up and looked around her. Silhouetted against the waning moon there stood a tree.
* * *
Damba was fond of Nandzi. He had thought of asking leave to buy her for himself, taking her as his concubine or even as a wife.
However he had been present when the Asante Consul had placed an embargo upon the Na's lust. There was no way that he could ask for that which had been denied the King.
Damba did what he could for Nandzi, though with discretion. He had given her an old cloth of his mother's and he brought her food from time to time to supplement the spare diet which she shared with the other slaves. When he inspected the prison camp at dawn each morning, at the changing of the guard, he made a point of looking for her and greeting her.
So this morning he noticed her absence almost at once. The guards knew nothing. The girl had been there the previous evening. They had all been awake throughout the night and there was no way she could have climbed the outer wall or slipped out through the entrance hall.
Then Damba saw the footprint which Nandzi had left in the horse shit.
* * *
The dew was already dry when they rode up.
Nandzi was still fast asleep. She was sitting upright on a branch tied to the trunk with her old cloth.
While two men held his great white horse, Damba stood on the saddle. Leaning his body against the tree he removed Nandzi's home-made safety harness. She did not resist as he lifted her down and placed her on the saddle before him. He noticed how hot her skin was and felt her forehead. She had a high fever.
* * *
Fearing that he would be punished as Abdulai had been, Damba sought a private audience with the Na and told him exactly what had happened.
“Where is the girl now?” asked the Na.
“She is very ill, delirious with fever,” replied Damba. “She is in no condition to repeat her attempt to escape. I took her to my mother's house. My mother has knowledge of the use of plants and she is treating her. It was my mother who insisted that I report to Your Highness at once. As soon as she can walk, I will send her back to the slaves' compound. Unless, of course, Your Highness orders otherwise.”
“She will have to be executed,” said the King, “as an example to the others. I am sure that that is what Nana Péte will require. But let your mother first restore her to good health.”
* * *
Damba’s mother looked after Nandzi well.
At first she was only pandering to the wishes of her beloved first-born, but as she nursed the girl, she became fond of her. Using Suba, who was now staying in their compound, as an interpreter, she asked her about her home and family. She fed her well and
soon Nandzi began to put on weight. As soon as she was able, she insisted on sweeping the compound and helping with the cooking.
Nandzi’s outward display of gratitude and humility concealed an inner turmoil. In other circumstances she would have calmly considered her position and weighed up the choices open to her. Now she was scared of thinking, terrified of what she might find in her own mind. She no longer attempted to communicate with Itsho. She no longer thought of her mother and her small brother. Inside her, she was already dead.
She was troubled by terrible nightmares, from which she awoke screaming and sweating; but by morning she had lost all recollection of their content, or, indeed, that she had dreamed at all.
Suba was a constant visitor. Somehow he sensed the change in her and realised that it would not be wise to question her about her attempted escape. He now had a good command of Dagomba and was learning Asante from one of Koranten Péte’s personal slaves. He was disturbed at the silence between them. In an attempt to penetrate her reserve he started to teach Nandzi something of what he had learned. She picked it up quickly, but in a mechanical way.
“What is wrong with Nandzi?” he asked Damba.
Damba watched her with concern, troubled by his awareness that her life was forfeit. He had convinced the Na that it would be bad for the slaves’ discipline to return her to their compound, but he was running out of arguments for the further postponement of her day of reckoning. He wondered whether she was aware of the awful fate in store for her.
* * *
Na Saa Ziblim and Nana Koranten Péte sat side by side on their carved Asante stools, alone together in the deep shade.
A slave, standing at a discreet distance, charged their bowls with pito when summoned. The King's stool was a gift from the Consul. They were dressed casually: the Consul wore a batakari, a gift from the Na; and the Na wore cloth, a gift from the Consul.
“I should like to see this young woman,” said Koranten Péte. “The case intrigues me. It takes some courage to venture into the bush all alone at night. It is not often that you find that quality in a woman, let alone a slave. Or is the girl mad, perhaps?”
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